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I didn’t tell her how much I liked it. “You ready to go?”
Instead of answering, Charlotte gave a tiny nod and held my eyes while she took a sip of her coffee.
I shook my head with a laugh and opened the door to let her out first.
Charlotte yawned as I set her duffel bag next to my suitcase in the trunk of her car.
“How long do you think you’ll last?” I asked, buckling myself into the driver’s seat while she settled her pillow into a tight wedge between the door and her seat.
“Less than ten minutes,” she said. Absently, she patted my leg before curling up on her side. “Wake me if you need anything.”
True to her word, Charlotte was out within six minutes, the deep, even sound of her breathing the only thing to punctuate the silence in the car. As I navigated through Ann Arbor, I decided to take a slight detour past the stadium. Because it was Sunday morning, the traffic was light. There was no one behind me, so I slowed the car, staring hard at the blockMas we passed.
I’d never be able to untangle that place from my memories with Chris.
The traffic light ahead of me slipped from yellow to red, and I eased the car to a stop. Charlotte shifted slightly, and I smiled when she let out a soft snore.
From the console, my phone buzzed.
Byron Cogswell:Thanks for letting me know. They found a key for a storage unit not far from Chris and Amie’s house. The envelope was in a box of paperwork, and it was sealed when they sent it to me. To my knowledge, no one has opened it. If you need to talk anything over after you’ve read the contents, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Like someone had shoved a boot into my chest, my tight lungs expelled a heavy breath. The whole weekend had been a bit too emotionally charged for a vague answer that held so many possibilities.
It could be anything, I reminded myself.
As we drove back to the Campbell House, Charlotte sound asleep in the seat next to me, I tried to ignore the possibilities of what awaited us upon our return. But it didn’t help. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything we’d just experienced was about to implode.
Chapter Thirty
BURKE
Charlotte woke briefly when we stopped for a late breakfast about halfway back to Traverse City. It was the sleepy smile, the contented sigh as she fell immediately back to sleep, that had my heart turning over in my chest while I drove us the last stretch back to the house.
The continued quiet in the car wasn’t good for me.
It allowed for too much reflection, too many memories, too much conjecture to mix themselves in my head.
By the time I pulled the car into the long driveway, I felt the need to run for ten miles as fast as I could possibly go. I needed something draining to siphon out all the energy running heedless through my head.
William was seated at the patio table in front of the carriage house, his laptop in front of him and a pencil stuck beneath his ball cap. On the table, tucked under the edge of his computer, was a piece of mail.
My stomach tensed, and my heart thundered.
When I turned the car off, Charlotte finally stirred, emitting another huge yawn. “Mmmm, that was a good nap.” She sighed.
I managed a smile. “I think that was more than a nap, Red.”
She tucked her face against her pillow and hid her smile. “I suppose. I’ll be up all night now.”
All the things holding me on edge kept me from making some teasing statement, the words stuck somewhere in the back of my throat.
For a brief moment, it had gotten so much easier to tell her what I was thinking, as if the crossing of those unseen lines had broken some chokehold I had on myself.
But it was back—an unwillingness to speak when I didn’t know the answers for sure.
An unwillingness to tell her anything that I might have to take back. That might promise her—us—something that wasn’t mine to promise.
So, instead, I memorized the sweet look on her face, and smiled.
